“I’m leaving,” Charlotte said. Her eyes met Sophie’s. “I’m leaving and I’m taking Pippa with me. I love her; I love her as if she were my own child.” You thought she was your child, a voice screamed in her mind. Charlotte steadily ignored it. She couldn’t afford to listen. “I can’t leave her here with a madman,” she said. “We’ll go to Wales. I doubt that Alex would remember that I have a house there.”

“Don’t be stupid!” Sophie snapped. “He’s your husband—everything belongs to him now.”

“No, it doesn’t. My father negotiated a peculiar dowry based on the rumors surrounding Alex’s first marriage. He believed Alex, but he demanded that I retain my own property. And Alex … Alex didn’t care.” She pushed away the memory of a laughing Alex, insisting that he didn’t give a snap of his fingers for her money. That was Alex before their wedding, when he thought she was a virgin. What a tangled mess this is, she thought in a moment of dispassionate logic.

“So the house in Wales is my property. I shall go there until the baby is born, and then I am going to travel to America.”

Sophie thought about this. Charlotte was clearly hysterical, even given her collected tone. She couldn’t take Alex’s children and move to America; they would find her and throw her in jail. On the other hand, Sophie judged that Alex probably needed a cooling-down period. Not too long, because he had to be there for Charlotte’s delivery or he might never believe that the child was his.

“All right,” Sophie said with sudden resolution. “How are we going to get out of the house without Alex knowing?”

“Oh, Sophie. You are a sweetheart, but you can’t come with me. You’d be ruined.”

“Don’t be a fool. I won’t be ruined.”

“Yes, you will,” Charlotte insisted passionately. “You won’t be able to get married if you run off with me—my God, you probably shouldn’t even be visiting me now!”

Sophie looked at Charlotte wryly. Clearly this was the first time the thought crossed Charlotte’s mind. She was such an innocent!

“Sweetheart, don’t you realize that it’s all about money? I am my father’s heir. Nothing could ruin me except being found absolutely naked in someone’s bedroom.”

“I don’t believe you, Sophie. Look what ruined me: a faint and a touch on Patrick’s cheek.”